


somewhat in disguise

by shineyma



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Season/Series 01, Ward x Simmons Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 11:21:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7435507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The whole day has been more suited to a spy novel than real life. Jemma is prepared to swear off the genre for good.</p>
<p>[For the prompt <b>beach book</b> at Ward x Simmons Summer.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	somewhat in disguise

**Author's Note:**

> This fought me SO HARD, but at last, it is complete! *confetti* As usual, I'm behind on comment replies, but I'll try to catch up soon.
> 
> Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!

Jemma could never be happy that Ward is injured, but on this one, rare occasion, she is rather grateful for it.

(Not that she’ll _ever_ be telling him as much; he gets himself hurt far too often as it is and doesn’t at all need the encouragement.)

Of course, it’s not so much the _injuries_ she’s thankful for—he’s in awful shape—so much as the fact that tending to them gives her the excuse to politely and subtly ignore the rest of the room. Stitching his wounds is a perfectly respectable reason to remain wholly focused on him, rather than the three men they’ve come to meet.

She’s especially grateful that she’s able to keep her back to the man in the corner; he’s been leering at her since the moment they arrived, and just the memory of his expression is enough to make her skin crawl. If she actually had to _look_ at him, her courage might well fail her entirely.

It helps that none of Ward’s contacts appear to speak English; the conversation has been conducted wholly in what she believes (based on her knowledge of Ward’s languages and her familiarity with the Romance languages, which this is decidedly not) to be Russian, and so she’s free to pretend that they’re discussing something innocuous. The price of local real estate, perhaps, or—

Ward goes suddenly still as the man in the corner interrupts him, and Jemma pauses, the bandage she was about to apply to his stitches held just above his skin. Peeking up at him, she finds his expression worryingly reminiscent of the day he was influenced by the berserker staff.

She can’t quite contain a flinch when his eyes drop to meet hers.

“Hold that thought,” he says, catching her wrist and moving it—and the bandage—aside. Then he’s up and off the chaise lounge they’ve been sharing, and in the time it takes her to turn to watch him, he has the man in the corner pinned to the wall by his throat.

The other two men watch on, unconcerned.

Jemma doesn’t know what the words Ward snarls at the man mean, but they’re enough to make him stop struggling. His hands, which _had_ been clawing at Ward’s grip, rise innocently, and his choked out response sounds placating.

Ward says something else, low and threatening, and more throws the man to the ground than releases him. The man coughs, gasping for breath, and one of the other two shakes his head, expression pitying.

Matter apparently settled, Ward returns to sit beside her. They’ve been sharing the lounge for nearly an hour, him sitting properly in it with his legs stretched out and recently relocated knee elevated, while she perched on the edge at his thigh in order to tend to the numerous injuries on his face and upper body. This arrangement must no longer satisfy, however; as soon as he settles into place, he hooks his closer arm around her waist and drags her right into his lap.

Jemma, to her utter mortification, squeaks.

“Wh—” is as far as she gets before Ward cuts her off with a kiss. It’s brief, but deep and overwhelming, and it chases every single thought from her head. When he draws back, all she can do is blink at him.

He nods once, hand falling away from where it’s tangled in her hair, and sits back against the lounge.

“Stay,” he orders, voice sharp and very nearly mean. “And you don’t look at them, you hear?”

It’s the tone he takes sometimes in the field, when there’s a particular threat to her or Skye or Fitz, and perversely, it makes her relax. It serves as a reminder: he warned her before they came here that his contacts weren’t good men, and that they knew him as someone like them—a violent, remorseless criminal.

He told her that all she needs to do is trust him and follow his lead—that he’ll make sure no one hurts her.

And though she doesn’t know precisely what’s going on, she _does_ trust him. So rather than question him or try to move away, she simply nods and returns to tending his wounds. The ease of long practice keeps her hands steady—she _is_ a scientist, after all—but she fears there’s nothing to be done for the blush burning her cheeks.

He _kissed_ her. It was for strategic reasons, she’s sure, some part of whatever show he’s putting on here, but her pounding heart doesn’t care about his motives. All it cares about is the weeks she’s spent dreaming about him and the sudden jolt of hope it’s received.

She suspects this will do nothing to help her horrid crush on him.

It does, however, seem to do what he intended—or at the very least, it doesn’t do any harm. The meeting continues and eventually concludes, and the three men file out of the room just as Jemma is smoothing the last bandage into place. She doesn’t dare hope they’ve left entirely (it _is_ their house, after all), but just having them out of the room is enough for her nerves.

And Ward’s. She’s still on top of him, held securely in his lap, and she can feel some of the tension eke out of him as a distant door closes.

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice almost a whisper. “Do—Are you—?”

He flounders, appearing not to know what to ask, and she gives him her best smile.

“It’s all right,” she says, and looks after their hosts as an excuse to break his gaze. “I presume that was for their benefit?”

“Yeah.” He sighs, head falling back against the lounge. “I thought the fact that I brought you at all would be enough to let them know you were off limits, but…” He scowls. “They needed a demonstration.”

“You…want them to think we’re together?” she asks. It’s not as though it’s a _surprise_ —not after that kiss—and yet the idea makes her heart skip a beat.

“Not so much want as need,” he says, casting a glare at the door. “These aren’t the kinda guys who take no for an answer. But as long as they know you’re mine, they’ll leave you be.”

Jemma shivers. Pretending a relationship for the sake of a woman’s protection is just the sort of thing that’s always popping up in the spy-themed romance novels that have become her guilty pleasure of late, but in practice, she finds it much more frightening than fun. (Actually, this entire day could have come straight out of one of those novels—misunderstandings and betrayals and all. She might never be able to read one again.)

Remembering the one man’s leering has her skin crawling all over again, and she resolves never to ask what prompted Ward’s violence towards him. She’s fairly certain she’s better off not knowing.

“I’m sorry,” Ward says again. His arm tightens around her waist, reminding her that she’s yet to move off of him. “I wouldn’t have brought you here if we had any other choice.”

“It’s not your fault.” In point of fact, it’s SHIELD’s—but she’s trying not to think about that. “Should I pretend to be enamored of you? Will that help things?”

“Nah.” He smiles, just a little. “Considering how your last attempt went…”

Jemma glares at him, only causing his smile to widen. No one on the team is _ever_ going to let her live down the disastrous incident with Sitwell.

“Really, though,” she persists. “Won’t they be suspicious if I just sit here like a frightened lump?”

Ward sobers. “No. Actually…” He grimaces. “It’ll make it more convincing. This cover’s not the kind of guy who gets—or wants—a loving girlfriend.”

“I see,” she says, slowly, as a chill passes beneath her skin. “You really weren’t joking when you said they knew you as a bad man, were you?”

“Hey,” he says, catching her chin and keeping her eyes on his when she would look away. His other hand rubs a soothing path along her side. “I’m not gonna hurt you, okay? Not for a cover—not ever.”

“I know you aren’t,” she assures him at once. Her heart twists at the guilt written across his face—and, better hidden but still present, the hurt. “I trust you completely. It’s not that.”

“Then…what is it?” he asks, searching her face.

She doesn’t want to admit the truth—that her faith in SHIELD has suffered an awful blow today, and that learning the sort of man they’ve sent him to be only worsens the damage—so she only shakes her head.

“It’s nothing,” she says. “But if not loving, how _should_ I act?”

For a moment she thinks he’s going to press the issue; then, mercifully, he lets it go.

“Just keep doing what you’ve been doing,” he says. “Seen but not heard’s a good way to play it. All you have to do is stick close to me and not say anything.”

“Oh, good.” She smiles, relieved. “I can certainly manage that.”

It’s beyond simple. There’s not a chance on this Earth that she’ll be leaving his side while they’re here—and knowing now for certain the kind of men with whom they’re keeping company, she doesn’t believe she’ll be able to find her voice in their presence.

(Fitz was more right than he knew when he said there would come a moment she’d regret entering the field. Today alone, she’s experienced at least five.)

“Any other questions?” he asks, darting a glance at his watch (a very expensive gold piece he stole right off of someone’s wrist some six hours ago) and then the door. “We’re gonna be moving out soon, and we probably won’t get much time alone, so now’s the time.”

“Moving out?” It’s the first she’s heard of such a thing—although, of course, they didn’t truly have time for conversation on the way here. Even his warnings about the men they were meeting and the man he had to be for them were delivered hastily and breathlessly as she worked to keep him from bleeding out in the back of their cab. “Where are we going? Do we have any kind of plan?”

“We do.”

Loud footsteps stop him, and Jemma feels less foolish for holding her breath when she realizes he’s doing the same. Neither of them so much as twitches until the footsteps move further away, stomping up the stairs.

“We’re heading for the border,” Ward continues, easily, as though he never stopped. “The guys’ll help us sneak across it, but…”

“But?” she asks, wary at his sudden hesitance.

He sighs, fiddling with the hem of her shirt. It’s an absent motion, she’s certain, no meaning behind it at all, but it nonetheless makes warmth curl in her stomach. She’s spent the last thirty minutes—at _least_ —in his lap, and it’s not awkward or uncomfortable at all. He’s touched her more today than in every other day of their acquaintance _combined_ , more than she’s ever seen him touch _anyone_. Certainly, then, it should be strange.

Instead, it’s only nice. Lovely, even.

Unlike the look on his face, which is making her decidedly nervous. “W—Vasya?”

He spares her a smile—she presumes for remembering to use the name he gave her just before they arrived (which is not, interestingly, the name by which their hosts greeted him)—that fades far too soon.

“Getting us across the border’s not gonna be easy,” he says. She wonders if he’s aware he’s drumming his fingers against her hip. “They want me to do them a favor first.”

His tone and expression both make it clear that the favor in question isn’t one he’s looking forward to, and dread grips tight to Jemma’s heart.

“What…kind of favor?”

“The kind that ends with innocent people dead,” he says quietly—and then, anticipating her protest, hurries on. “And I don’t have a choice. It’s the only way to get you safely across—”

“No,” she interrupts, horrified, “absolutely not! You can’t prioritize _me_ over—”

“I can and I will.” Ward’s voice is still quiet, but it’s sharp enough to cut right through her argument. “Right now, your safety is my _only_ priority, and that means that I’m gonna do whatever it takes to get you back to the team, whether you like it or not.”

She _doesn’t_ like it, not at all—but neither does he, of course. Ward isn’t open with his emotions at the best of times, which this certainly isn’t, but she’s known him long enough to recognize the strain in his expression.

He doesn’t want to kill innocent people any more than she wants him to. With luck, she can talk him out of this.

“I appreciate your desire to protect me,” she says. As if of their own will, her eyes move over his face, taking in the damage he’s already suffered defending her today. The worst is a cut bisecting his right eyebrow; she fears it will scar, but she saw the moment he got it and knows he was fortunate not to lose his eye. If he’d been a second slower… “And I’m grateful for it, more than I can say. But we have a duty to _protect_ innocent lives. I can’t allow you to take them for my sake.”

Ward shakes his head, but she pushes on before he can argue.

“There must be another way—we can find one. My life is _not_ more important tha—”

“Your life isn’t what’s on the line here,” he snaps, only to grimace and lower his voice. “If we get caught, _I’ll_ be killed. You’ll get a lot worse than that.”

She knows that, of course. It was obvious from the first that all of this fuss is about more than their technically illegal presence in this country; the various and sundry people chasing them have need of her brain, not her death. And she’s not so deluded as to believe that, should she be caught, they’ll restrict themselves to asking nicely for her assistance.

Still, something about having it so baldly stated chills her. She blinks furiously against a sudden rush of tears, and Ward’s face softens.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, hands rubbing up her side. He looks as though he’s considering pulling her in closer for a hug, but—likely in deference to his cracked ribs and numerous cuts and bruises—refrains. “I don’t wanna scare you. But I don’t have the luxury of ideals right now, okay?”

Jemma doesn’t know what to say to that. His words sit uncomfortably in her chest, like a heavy stone weighing down her heart.

_The luxury of ideals_ …it’s an awful turn of phrase. She can’t help but wonder just how frequently SHIELD has left Ward in situations like this—or, worse, ordered him into them—that he uses it so easily. How often has he had to put his own morals aside to complete a mission?

Too often, she thinks, and so it leaves her feeling very small that he’s willing to do so again, on her behalf and without direct orders. To say nothing of the fact that that he’s accustomed (or as accustomed as one can be, at least) to making such compromises means it will be that much harder to talk him out of it.

She doesn’t even know where to _start_.

“You can’t,” she says—rather weakly, she fears. “I’m—”

He cuts her off with a sharp pinch to her side even as she’s registering that anger has replaced his previous expression of gentle understanding. She doesn’t need to look to the door to know they’re no longer alone.

“You don’t tell me what I can and can’t do,” Ward says, and knowing it’s only an act can’t stop her cringing at his tone. (In her defense, it’s been a long day and she’s very nearly overwrought.) “You shut up and do what you’re told. Understand?”

She nods, swallowing back tears as much for his snapping as for the knowledge that she’s out of time. Barring some last minute miracle, she has no way of preventing him from doing this horrid favor.

“Good girl.” He pats her cheek, then turns his attention to the man in the doorway. It’s not the man who was leering earlier; it’s the tallest of the three, who barely even glanced at her before.

He’s not looking at her now, either. He quirks an eyebrow at Ward, who—she thinks—asks a question. Then the man nods, pushing off the doorjamb, and disappears back down the hall.

“Up,” Ward orders, tone still very much unkind—something Jemma takes to mean the man hasn’t gone very far.

She’s proven right in short order; she’s only just stood up when he returns, hauling a large duffel bag that Ward stands to accept. She bites her lip, studying the way he rests most of his weight on his left leg as he drops the bag onto the lounge and digs through it. That’s something else to consider, in addition to the moral issues: he’s in no shape to be fighting _anyone_.

But that’s never been enough to stop him in the past, so she doesn’t bother to voice her concern. She keeps her silence and watches as he arms himself with an excessive number of guns and knives, noting without surprise that some of the tension leaves his shoulders as he does so. He confided in her on the way here that the only gun he managed to keep hold of after that last altercation was down to only two bullets; it must have been worrying him terribly to be so disarmed.

The last thing he pulls out of the bag is a shirt—thoughtful of their hosts, as the one he wore here is nothing but a collection of bloodstained shreds at this point. He holds it up for a long moment, considering it, and then jerks his head at her.

“Help me get this on.”

In any other circumstances, she’d be delighted to be asked—he is _horrible_ about accepting help—but in the company of one of their hosts, her earlier terror has come rushing back. It takes all of her courage to inch close enough to take the shirt from him.

Thankfully, it’s a button-down (a rather nice one, actually, in a lovely deep blue), so her role is mostly to hold it open as he gingerly slides his arms into the sleeves. Once it’s settled on his shoulders, he turns to face her, and she relaxes a bit at having him placed squarely between her and their company.

Ward flicks his eyes from the open shirt to her and back again, and, taking it as a cue, she begins to do up the buttons for him. His hands, warm and reassuring, land on her hips as she starts on the second button, and she breathes in slowly.

She trusts Ward. He won’t let anyone hurt her, and he can handle whatever this ‘favor’ throws at him. Which—in light of the fact that innocent lives will be the cost—isn’t precisely a good thing, but that’s not his fault.

It was SHIELD that sent them here and then abandoned them, and it’s SHIELD that’s keeping the team from offering any kind of assistance. SHIELD backed them into this corner; Ward is only doing what he must to get them out of it. She hopes he knows she understands that.

Whatever he’s about to do, she can’t bear the thought of him walking into it thinking she’s holding what he has to do against him. She doesn’t dare offer verbal reassurance (and wouldn’t know what to say, in any case), but she risks giving him a little nod as she reaches the last button.

Though his expression doesn’t change, it does relax a touch. Cupping the back of her neck, he tugs her closer even as he bends to meet her in a kiss. It’s rather rough—she presumes for the benefit of their spectator—but as it draws out, his thumb rubs gentle circles beneath her ear.

Overall, it’s quite comforting…and a fantastic kiss, besides. What parts of this day that don’t star in her nightmares will, she’s positive, make appearances in her dreams for weeks to come.

Only when she’s entirely breathless does Ward break the kiss, and after a quick squeeze to the back of her neck, he lets his hand drop. Realizing belatedly that she has a death grip on his shirt, Jemma follows suit.

The man behind him says something, a laugh in his voice, and Ward turns to answer him with a smirk. Then he’s catching Jemma’s hand and tugging her along behind him to follow as the man leads the way out the door. The leering man is standing in the hall, but he doesn’t pay her any mind as she passes—and neither does the third man, who they find waiting for them outside.

She’s happy not to be the focus of their attention—and happier still for Ward’s hand, holding tight to hers. It’s reassuring, a reminder that the role he’s playing is only that—a role. She may be surrounded by strangers she has good cause to fear, but she’s not afraid at all.

If SHIELD _had_ to abandon her—and she’s not convinced they did, not at all; there _must_ have been another choice—at least they left her with someone she can trust.

Ward will get them out of here, and after that…

After that…she doesn’t know.


End file.
